ISSUES

As Corinna mentioned in a recent blog post, we are both experiencing what she called "ISSUES" in our quest to clean our homes, sell them, and get the Hell out of them. 

Our issues are diverging pretty radically since our lives are pretty different.  I don't have a play to deal with, for example.  On the other hand, I do have a nursing job in another city, so along with the kids and Austin and social obligations (both family and friends) and the holidays... I also have to be out of the house a lot, working.

These are expected stressors at this time of year and in this situation, but in the last week we have run into two more.  One is that this house needs a lot of work, and some of it is unexpected and expensive.  We decided to recarpet the downstairs and then we decided we couldn't afford it... and then I realized I could sell some of my Paid Time Off hours (because I rarely use them) and so we decided we would not only recarpet, we would do it with the more expensive, higher quality carpet.  (This might seem silly but I think it will be a selling point - and if we wind up staying here for longer than we anticipated, we will not have to recarpet again.)

More money issues were piled on that on Tuesday afternoon when our realtor advised us that we should spend $2,000 or so and get an air exchanger for our house.  We have had humidity in our house for a long time; condensation on the windows, and mildew forming in the bathrooms.  It is beginning to damage the wood in the house and it does need to stop.  And we probably can't sell the house it if continues to have this problem.  So... more money needs to be put in so that we can get out.

I was just making myself okay with this and figuring out how to pay for new carpet, an air exchanger, continue to make progress on painting in the house and doing other odd jobs when the phone rang... and it was the school nurse calling to say that Julia had nits in her hair.  Great.  Head lice.  I spent the rest of the next twenty-four hours or so doing 18 loads of laundry, vaccuming all the carpet and furniture, and realizing that nits are tiny and I should really relent and make the transition to bifocals.

And that pretty much sums up last week's issues.

After the lice crisis was under control, I primed the walls in my office, covering up the insane texture painting that some previous resident left (photos forthcoming in a future blog).  And I packed some things up, Austin continued painting, and we even went to a Christmas party on Saturday night and had fun.

This coming week I'm working several days, but we are also getting the new carpet.  I'm hoping it will be a less stressful week overall, and we'll see major progress in the way our basement looks.